Eden of the Stars - Chapter 1
In the void of endless darkness, the sounds of fluorescent light beckoned to Eden. She stirred. The feeling of an intensely deep thirst prevented her from returning to the vast world of sleep. Eden was forced to open her eyes and gaze upon the realm of the unfamiliar. Eden was not in her bedroom, or even her house for that matter. This thought maintained its home in Eden’s mind for an inordinate amount of time before it was displaced by other, more horrifying knowledge. Red and green wires sprouted from Eden’s hair and shot through the darkness. Blinking computer screens gladly ate the array of wires and cords. They stood opposite to Eden and cast untranslatable beams of light across the room. Strange shadows of stranger machines danced and played among the penumbras. A gear shimmered in a gleam of light, or perhaps it was a saw blade. Diagrams were pasted along the walls, depicting bizarre and more frightening beasts. The first one that Eden noticed was that of a Labrador dog. Piece by piece, the paper showed it taken apart. Each piece was labeled by symbols that Eden could not hope to understand. A spinal bone protruded from its dissected tail. A brain was lifted out of a severed cranial cap. Its lungs exuberated from its flayed-open chest, and a heart sat beside it. Eden noticed the most extraordinary detail: the dog in the diagram had its tongue out and was slobbering innocently in some futile attempt to render the macabre innocent or cute, despite it causing the image to breed even more uncanny horror. These diagrams littered many of the walls. Many of them hosted creatures that Eden could not recognize, even beyond the brutality. Beasts with three tails dancing over a pumpkin-like fruit; giant fish with sabreteeth and cracked tiles on its back forming the last vestiges of a shell locked in a block of ice; nearly amorphous creatures taking the nature of water and shapeshifting to a multitude of beautiful and daring shapes--all found themselves sandwiched between viscerated lions and lacerated birds. The creatures that Eden recognized frightened her the most. She looked from the dog to cats, to mice, to parrots, to a gorilla, to the most terrifying of all--a human being. The organs they chose to take out of this man struck Eden as odd--four of his teeth; something Eden believe to be a gallbladder; his stomach--all stretched out and labelled according in some unnatural hieroglyphics. Her attention was stolen by the blinking computer screens. Now that Eden’s eyes had adjusted to the light, she could properly make out what she thought was a random series of images and movies. Details joined together to form a classroom. Children sat in neat little rows, staring at a teacher straddling back and forth in front of a blackboard. The camera tilted down to a desk, and a piece of paper lying on it. The paper was a worksheet, filled with a complicated set of problems. A hand appeared on camera, pencil gripped between nails painted purple. It began to scrawl the name “Eden” across the top. A child in front of the camera turned and gave a small chuckle. Eden wasn’t sure how, but the screen emanated an emotion--annoyance. All Eden knew was that it just felt different than the natural emotion of the memory. It was like hearing your voice on the radio for the first time; hearing the sound shot by your vocal cords undistilled by the reverberations of your skull. Eden felt her own emotion, unbiased by her own thoughts or state of being. It felt pure in the most frightening sense, casting a strange sense of doubt on the emotion of the memory, casting doubt on the memory of the emotion. Eden’s mind was pulled down from her thoughts by the next scene. It was simply cafeteria pizza. Still, that experience always conjured up joy in her day-to-day life. Or rather, that’s what Eden used to believe. The corners of her mouth flexed a smile and she began to bite her lips. A giggle erupted from her lungs. It felt novel, like a return to infancy, experiencing these emotions for the very first time. In a way, she was, really. The sound of a school bell tempted Eden to return to sleep. A swell of relief slumped her body. Her breaths became deep, and somber. The only thread keeping her tied to the realm of the waking was this strange device. She held a fascination of the machine, and then immediately wondered what that fascination would feel like when examined by it. Eden’s father returned home from work. A roar of excitement stirred Eden’s body from its stupor. It felt like a roller coaster dropping after its incline. Eden felt her stomach drop as the machine continued its playback. It took her through emotional twists and turns when she saw her father’s smile. A tear came to Eden’s eye. Her mouth returned to its smile, and her pearly white teeth cast a contrast to the dark room. The feeling of warmth. Oh, the feeling of warmth. It felt like Eden was in the pure presence of the sun, or God. She wondered if this was how having a child felt. Only looking at a newborn infant’s--your newborn infant’s--smile for the first time reminding you of something greater in this vast and empty world came close to the current emotion Eden expressed in her own imagination. Tears cascaded down her cheek as she wished to be in the presence of the machine. Her family embarked on a picnic, and Eden was bombarded with a pallet of what she dared called more improved emotions--better emotions--than what the human mind could produce of its own volition. They weren’t better, really. That would be like saying a television at maximum volume emits a better sound. Eden learned this the hard way when a cricket hopped onto the picnic blanket. The camera intensified on it, and Eden turned white. She couldn’t breathe at all. Her eyes widened and she desperately tried breaking away, only prevented by her body locking up in shock. A scream shot from her mouth, and once it began she could not stop. Eden tried turning her head away in revulsion. The only thing forcing her eyes open was the suspicious of nightmares worse. She pulled the cords from her head and the screen went dead. Eden was lost in darkness. Darkness, but not silence. Scratching noises echoed on metal walls. Eden tried to stop screaming, but even though the faucet of emotion had turned off, the pool was far from drained. There was banging on what Eden was sure was a door. Finally Eden was brought to a sort of reality. She rolled off the table. A surge of cold shot through her socks, bringing her attention and conscious away from her screaming. The banging got louder. Eden stepped as far away from the door as possible, seeing no other way to escape from the dark room. She ducked down, hoping to evade the gaze of whatever might peer into the room. It wasn’t long before the door was lifted open. If Eden thought she felt the prospect of true fear with the computer machine. That was before a small light bobbed into the room. It held a color which shifted from yellow to scarlet to cerulean, casting the room in vivid shades of color. A second light soon joined it in the room. They were held by an antenna, stuck to the head of a strange creature. A large beady eye scoured the room until it locked on Eden. She crawled up further in the corner, putting as much distance between her and the beast as she could. It crawled further into the room, its bony appendages flaying about almost at random. Its eye burned its way into Eden’s mind, the embers forming scars that might never heal. As Eden’s tears returned, the creature turned back towards the door. The color of its orbs strobed wildly. Eden was sure that it was communicating with more of its kind, and her fears were assured when a second one entered the room. They came closer and closer. Besides the blinking light and whatever clues they gave, their expressions did not change. They remained blank, unwavering. Eden looked back and forth between the creatures and their diagrams on the wall. “Get away from me!” Eden shouted. “I-I just want to be left alone!” The creatures were undeterred. They came ever closer. Their appendages made quick movements. They weren’t covered with blades, or spikes, but they appeared so bony that even a slight grazing would surely do immeasurable harm. Brown wings flapped and fluttered, obscuring Eden’s view of anything but the creatures in the room. The orbs blinked orange-yellow repeatedly. Eden tried to understand what it meant. Could they be panicked that she woke up in the middle of an attempted dissection, or could they be angry that she got off of the table? The appendages started swiping over Eden’s skin. Where she expected pain, she felt herself going numb, almost being lulled to sleep. The blinking orbs began lifting themselves towards Eden. To watch them, she had to keep her visage on the giant beady eye of the creature. It lead to a wildly deep abyss where shadows waltzed only roughly forming Eden’s shape. The orbs were pressed further towards Eden’s face. If she could have recoiled any further towards the wall, she would have. The orbs started pressing into Eden’s ears. The last thing that she noticed before the darkness returned to her world was the creature stepping backwards and its wings flaring. Then everything went dark. Once again dark, but not silent. “Sweetie! Sweetie! Everything’s alright!” Eden opened her eyes. Her pupils darted around, looking for some reassuring explanation. Finally she had it. The diagrams on the wall had reverted to posters of friendly faces. The computers and machines became a dresser, a vanity, a dollhouse, and a television set. The two creatures had became the reassuring faces of Eden’s mother and father. “It’s okay sweetie, you were just having a nightmare,” Eden’s father reassured. Eden shot up. She licked her teeth and swallowed deeply. The horrors of the past minute, hour, day--she had no chance of guessing--revolved around in her mind and fluttered about her heart. Her breaths were heavy and deep. Sweat dripped off of Eden’s nose. “I-I dreamed that I was… abducted by aliens or something,” Eden gasped. “Aliens? What a ridiculous dream,” her mother said, trying to be comforting. Eden turned towards her room. She scrutinized every wall, every corner. The imagery of the nightmare still overlapped the waking world in Eden’s mind. Dream? It couldn’t have been. Those emotions that she felt. Those creatures. “Aliens” wasn’t the term that immediately came to mind in the heat of the moment, but in the sanctity of the calm there truly was no better word for them. Eden was abducted by aliens Category:Miscellaneous